One more thing - I do not think that the PTC is some kind of conspiracy to encourage moral decay. I think it is a pretty straightforward money transfer program from taxpayers to special interests like Iberdrola, NextEra, Vestas, GE, and Siemens. Other beneficiaries of creating an electric power grid with a higher concentration of weather dependent generators are companies involved in suppling natural gas, which is the fuel of choice for the rapidly responding fossil fuel generators that must compensate for the fluctuations in wind and solar, especially as they gain larger shares of the market in certain areas.

There are few, if any, companies in the world with more political clout than ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, GE (which supplies both gas turbines and natural gas drilling equipment), Chesapeake, Anadarko, etc.

No. If current processes are retained, the best way to encourage new nuclear is to make the subsidy real and timely. Right now, it is more of a mirage off in the distant future as a reward IF a prospective power plant team can make it over all of the hurdles and reach the finish line of bringing a large, complex, and highly contested project to completion. The promise of a future reward does not help pay any current costs.

If the government really wanted to enable (not force) nuclear energy to be a competitive energy supply option, there are numerous cost-free rule changes that could be implemented to make it less risky to start and complete a project. One of the most important changes would be to seriously reconsider the "public involvement" parts of the process.

Though they sound good and important, they are a terrific tool for competitors to slow progress and add costs. I have no beef with technically competent people who have questions and suggestions, but I have a real problem with intervenors who can insert a tremendous amount of work and delay AND get paid for that effort by the government - which actually ends up charging the applicant for those costs.

It would also help if the Administration stopped appointing professional antinuclear activists to be the Chairman of the NRC.

While it is true that the Energy Policy Act of 2005 included provisions for a production tax credit for NEW nuclear power plants, that provision has not yet resulted in a single dime going from the federal government to a nuclear project to help defray the enormous hurdles erected by the federal government to slow nuclear energy development down. The production tax credit does not start helping until after the plant is actually producing electricity.

The PTC included in the EPA 2005 was quite limited:

Only available to the first 6,000 MW of new nuclear using technologies licensed after 1998 - which means that Watts Bar Unit II will not qualify and neither would the completion of the Bellefonte plants (which is a project that was considered and is now back on hold.)

Not adjusted for inflation. While the PTC for solar and wind is now 2.3 cents per kilowatt hour, the PTC rate for new nuclear - once the plants are completed - WILL be 1.8 cents per kilowatt hour.

No more than $125 million for any one reactor in any calendar year. If an AP1000 runs for a full year because it only needs to shut down for refueling, it could use up its PTC allowance in about 10 months and then operate for the next two months without any additional support.

Only available for the first 8 years of operation.

Only applicable for a plant that enters commercial service before the beginning of 2022. That means that it is unlikely to apply to any of the currently proposed SMR projects, though the very first B&W mPower unit MIGHT make it in time.

I believe that Entergy management decided to close a plant that was not meeting its profit requirements based on historical numbers.

Other enterprise models, like an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), or a cooperative business, have a different profit requirement. Entrepreneurial management might take a different look through the numbers, visit the area, and recognize the potential for both cost reductions and revenue increases that would change the P&L statement.

Businesses buy and sell assets all of the time and new owners can often make a go out of something that has not worked out for others.

It is quite unbecoming to be so disrespectful of your ancestors as to ignore all of their knowledge and accomplishments.

Do you really believe that human beings first started noticing that the sun provides energy to the earth "in the sixties?" Are you so dismissive of technological history that you believe it began in your time?

Solar energy collection had a massive head start on the controlled fission chain reaction. Humans have known about the energy from the sun since the very first one figured out that it was warmer and lighter when it was out than when it was not. People have been using that energy for industrial purposes since they started tanning hides and cultivating more food than they needed to feed themselves.

However, the really studious and observant humans that gravitated to the sciences also recognized the numerous technical disadvantages of a power source that regularly -- and irregularly -- disappears, leaving the collection systems idle or worse. As soon as they discovered fire, they began gravitating to more capable and controllable power systems.

Sure, there are talented engineers who love the challenge of trying to make more efficient collection systems, just like there are talented engineers who love improving systems for capturing the wind for racing sailboats. Both are interesting hobbies that have little or nothing to do with providing sustaining or abundant, reliable energy for billions of people.

It is amusing how activists who repeatedly called Entergy a liar during the past several years are now quoting the company's offered reason for shutting down the plant.

I've worked as a financial analyst. When a large organization says they are making a decision because a complex activity is "unprofitable," it behooves people to look hard at all of the numbers in order to gain understanding. What are all of the costs associated with operating a nuclear power plant in the state of Vermont? Who controlls those costs? What are the revenue opportunities? Are there any restrictions on sales activities? Can the plant expand and spread costs over a large number of units? Are there any imminent repairs required? Are there any new costs being added by changing regulations? Why?

Until very recently, Entergy was selling electricity from VY to the state of Vermont for 4.1 cents per kilowatt hour. It was a profitable activity at the time. A couple of years ago, when that legacy contract expired, Entergy offered a long term contract at 6 cents per kilowatt hour with revenue sharing if wholesale prices exceeded that level. That offer was rejected.

There is a big difference between the population of a creature like deer and that of the human species. Deer don't have the ability to make plans for the future or to recognize what is happening around them and adapt before they are forced to do so,

Humans, on the other hand, can each plan, make choices, and adjust before having to wait for what you call "natural mechanisms." Take a good look at the population trends in areas where there are plenty of resources, low childhood mortality, and plenty of education.

I'm not worried about "overpopulation" because human society has feedback mechanisms that do not require any kind forced selection process. We can each make up our mind and make choices that allow our population to achieve a relatively stable level. We also have the ability and the energy resources required to provide for whatever level seems desirable.

Being "chairman or director" of an organization that sounds impressive has little to do with scientific credentials.

If you want to know something about M. I. Balonov's scientific credentials, you might want to see what he has published and take a good look at the variety of collaborators on his many publications - 48 of which are listed at the link below.

I'd say you were half right. It is an energy problem. We have an abundant source of materials with such a high energy density that they can enable all of the world's current and predicted population to live lives with as much access to energy as modern day Americans for hundreds to thousands of years. Amazingly enough, those materials - uranium and thorium - release their incredible energy density without releasing any CO2.

I don't believe human society will grow to an outrageous size due to that abundance, however. History tells me that population growth slows to mere replacement levels (or even a bit lower) in societies that are industrialized and urbanized with access to plenty of energy. Today, population is only growing rapidly in those places where subsistence farming is common. In subsistence agricultural areas, people have lots of babies because children can become assets rather quickly by putting them to work.

In more modern societies, raising children is an expensive, time consuming endeavor. It's worthwhile, mind you, but most people chose smaller rather than larger families.

The headline you quoted is misleading. Coal ash is far LESS radioactive that nuclear waste (aka used nuclear fuel). It is true that the fly ash emitted from a coal power plant carries more radiation into the environment, but that is only because the fuel rods, spent fuel pools and dry storage casks contain the radioactivity and do not release it into the environment.

In a coal plant, most of the fly ash is not contained; it gets released into the environment either through the smoke stack or in the lightly controlled slurry ponds.

People who selectively believe documents and statements that support what they want to believe while ignoring every possible piece of evidence that contradicts their belief are generally said to be suffering from "confirmation bias" or self-delusion.

Please feel free to continue engaging in that practice, but keep your phobias to yourself. You wrote:

A week ago a documentary regarding the area around Chernobyl was on Dutch TV. Physicians told that now ~27 years thereafter ~90% of all children have chronic illness (one or more). Those are not considered in the stastistics of IAEA/WHO...

So I suppose you are claiming a giant, worldwide conspiracy of silence and denial among all of the members of the responsible international bodies, while your favored documentarians and fantasy writers like Yablokov are persecuted and suppressed.